


Tranquil Dance

by BlackBirdAolen



Category: Bravely Default: Flying Fairy
Genre: Asterisk, Dancing, Depth, F/M, Performer, Swordmaster, Teasing, Training, dance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-12
Updated: 2014-12-12
Packaged: 2018-03-01 05:01:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2760581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlackBirdAolen/pseuds/BlackBirdAolen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>While Tiz and Agnès are away, Edea and Ringabel use the chance to come closer to one another.</p><p> </p><p>  <a href="http://ask.fm/BlackBirdAolen">Got a fanfic idea for me?</a><br/><a href="http://cheroshseiphar.deviantart.com/">My deviantART - full of original fiction.</a><br/><a href="http://blackbirdaolen.tumblr.com/">Snippets and ramblings on my tumblr.</a></p>
            </blockquote>





	Tranquil Dance

Their gazes met on occasion while they were practicing. Edea had donned her Performer asterisk, revising her songs and accompanying dances, while Ringabel had picked his Swordmaster asterisk. It was hard keeping up with everything happening without making sure that they would be sufficiently trained. Tiz and Agnès were having one of their moments, as Ringabel so fittingly called it, and they were really not in the mood to interfere with them again. So, they just had to put up with the thought that, until their two friends would return, they had nothing to do but practice and not look like they were desperate to know what in the world was happening.

"Oh, I'm so curious...!" Edea impatiently jumped up and down, not even bothering to pretend she was focused on practicing any longer. "They have been away for such a long time already. I want to know what in the world is happening again!"

"Just be patient, my dear, it will all unfold in due time, I'm sure of that." Ringabel brushed through his hair, smiling to himself. "But I must say, I'm quite jealous of Tiz. He already has made admirable progress throughout his quest to win over Agnès."

Edea gave a soft grunt, shaking her head about Ringabel's words. "You're a moron," she flatly stated. "They are not doing that."

Ringabel gave her a confused glance, but then decided to keep to himself what he was thinking about at this very moment. It was safer to not anger Edea too much. She had quite the temper at times, and it would be horrible to be the target of her wrath, which would always come swiftly and surely. There was absolutely no doubt that she would make sure he suffered by her hand, if he ever dared to think anything perverted about Tiz and Agnès. Edea was too good at reading his expression already. He had to be extra careful.

"Say, Ringabel..." Edea was looking at him with a curious and somewhat doubtful gaze. "Do you know how to dance? And I don't mean from using the Performer asterisk. If we were to hold a royal ball, would you know how to dance then?"

"Why are you so interested in that?" Ringabel was quite puzzled about her questions. "I know how to dance, surely, but not in such a fashion. At least I can't recall possessing such a skill."

Edea nodded slowly, though still looked a bit doubtful. "I don't know, you seem like the type to know such a thing. It wouldn't surprise me, at least. You want to impress the ladies, and that would mean that you need some skill that they would be impressed. You can't just swoop in with nothing to show off and hope for the best."

Ringabel looked a bit taken aback, and Edea pondered that it might be because she always had been a bit rough on him. But not for one moment, she would have thought that he was a shallow character. He acted as though he was shallow, but beneath that surface, there was a deceptive depth to him. He knew much more than he let on, and even without clinging to this ominous journal having pointed them into the general direction of their journey, there was no doubt on her mind that Ringabel would have made a formidable dancer and admirer of the arts.

"You do surprise me, Edea." Ringabel chuckled, but then nodded slowly. "I would be rather stupid if I didn't at least possess some amount of knowledge and a select few skills to impress my beloved ladies. They _want_ to be impressed, after all. Everything else would be like an insult to them."

"Alright, alright, I get it." Edea waved at him impatiently. "But now, you should really show me if you can dance. I don't believe that you are completely incapable of doing it."

"Very well." Ringabel offered her his hand, and without any hesitation showing on her face, Edea grasped it. Again, he was slightly taken aback by how much she trusted him, despite her tongue being especially sharp whenever she spoke about him. "But please, my lady Edea, excuse me if I come across as rather insecure at first. It has been a long time since anyone even asked me to dance with them. In fact, I don't recall any occasion."

"That's because you're still amnesiac, stupid." Edea huffed, but then relaxed in his grasp. "Anything coming back already?"

Ringabel nodded faintly. They were moving in the rhythm of a slow waltz, and indeed, his body recalled the movement before he even could think about a music accompanying it. Edea hummed it for him, with a rather pronounced rhythm, so that he didn't feel like he was losing it right away again. He was leading her, as he noticed with surprise. He would have expected Edea to lead him, but in the end, she seemed to want this to proceed properly. A faint blush came to Ringabel's cheeks, and he moved with her, swaying ever so gently.

The thoughts about his missing memories, about how close Tiz and Agnès had grown, even about the imminent danger their journey posed, it was all gone. He just focused on this wonderful swaying, on the humming coming from Edea, and on the feeling that he was in control of his life. It was strange that Edea's request for a dance could do something so nearly miraculous for him. He had thought that he wouldn't need much help restoring his memory. That he would just need a simple start, and it all would go from there. But he apparently had been quite wrong.

"How does it feel?" They didn't stop, and it didn't seem to him like they would stop any time soon. "Does it bring back any memories?"

"None so far." Ringabel just let his body do the work. It remembered the steps and the rhythm, even without Edea humming it ever so gently under her breath. "There's still just a blank space where memories are supposed to linger. It wouldn't surprise me if it would take years for me to go back to where I was before."

"Maybe it's better like that." Edea increased the tempo of their movement just the slightest bit, but Ringabel immediately followed. Their movements became more fluid, ever so slightly wider, allowing them to fully use the space of the clearing they had chosen for their training, and their rest tonight. "Who knows how insufferable you would be once all of your memory would be restored? I can't even fathom how much of a nuisance you must have been before."

"That is quite harsh of you, milady." Ringabel sighed quietly, but he didn't complain any more. It was nice to have this dance with Edea, even though the question had come a bit unexpectedly. Adding to that, the feeling of dancing while using the Swordmaster asterisk was strange in many regards. "Am I really just a nuisance for you?"

"Not always." Again, a very softly spoken admittance from her side. Edea was much softer than she let on. Often enough, she seemed like a spoiled and much too whiny child, but over the course of their journey, it had been obvious several times that she was much softer and much more understanding than she would openly admit. And that was quite beautiful of her. "But you often do things, and say more things, which just make me see red."

Ringabel chuckled softly, but he didn't tease her any more about it. Instead, he just lead her all across the clearing. They swirled, sometimes merely swayed, coming close to a standstill at times, before their movements would become wider and faster again. An ever changing stream of movement. It was poetry on its own. An art that was understandable only when being in the very middle of it.

"I'm a bit worried about our future." Edea looked up at him, while they were swirling in a rather tight circle. "The challenges along the path of our journey are far from over, right?"

"Correct." Ringabel squeezed her hand, hoping to reassure her. "But we must never fear, never waver. We have the means to accomplish anything we wish to in our hands. And that is what makes us so strong at this very moment. It might not sound like much, to be honest, but there is nothing that could overwhelm us on the spot. I mean, look at us. We always have gone into battle well-prepared. That already speaks for us. We never rushed it, just so that we would be able to put it behind us. I think that is because we know that rushing something would be a terrible mistake. And such terrible mistakes are only made once. There are the old, and there are the bold. The combination of those two admirable attributes is rare."

Edea leaned up to kiss Ringabel's lips, which made him flinch in surprise. "You're talking too much. And you sound like a know-it-all again. I don't like that. It makes me feel stupid. And that's not how you treat a lady."

"Alright, I suppose that is only fair." Ringabel sighed and leaned his forehead against Edea's. "I'm truly and terribly sorry for that. I wasn't aware of that."

They had stopped moving, not bothering to check their surroundings. Ringabel believed to faintly hear Tiz and Agnès, but he wasn't really interested in them at this moment. Of course, Agnès was lovely in her own right, but right now, Edea occupied all of his attention. She was spoiled, she could be rather bratty, and at times, her attitude coming off as haughty and careless of the affairs of others was driving him to the brink of insanity, but she definitely was more than just a superficial, stubborn royal. They all had at least two sides to them, and in this night, they had shown one another that other side, which never would have come to light without some stubbornness from both their sides.

"I still think you're a terrible person," Edea muttered against his shoulder.

"And I still think you're a lovely, if fanged flower," Ringabel teased back lightly.

"Fine." Edea chuckled and hugged him, just as Ringabel embraced her. They definitely would end up arguing a lot even after this, but at least, they could be sure that they also cared for one another. And that was worth much more than all the dislike between them.

 


End file.
